My 50 Gallon South of the Border Community

**bignellm** · 04-08-2012, 01:48 PM

Originally Posted by dlee

Plants look awesome!

A word of caution about the Aqueon Water Changer.....make SURE your hose is connected tightly!.... The water proceeded to shoot out the little spout at the faucet, straight across the room, like a mini fire hose and caused a bit of a flood in the kitchen. What a mess. ....

I kinda thought it wasn't robust enough to hold the water back, if I shut the valves. Only did it twice, though not for long.

**Cermet** · 04-08-2012, 02:34 PM

Your ammonia levels hitting 2.0 ppm is extremely high - a near 100% water change was in order and I am confused why no one said that. Small water changes (under 50%) are of little value for high readings. ALWAYS use 50% or greater and 75% is best. Yes, the bio-media will slowly grow when WC are done, but fish should not see ammonia levels above 0.25 (even with a aid.) Hope all is going well and good luck. Hang in there and the filter will cycle.

**bignellm** · 04-08-2012, 03:01 PM

My theory on why no one was calling for large w/c's is one of the type of stock I have in there.

Aside from that, not one of the fish has shown any sign of distress or sickness in this tank. Also, the rate of ammonia toxicity increase has slowed dramatically in the last couple weeks. 2ppm is when i do change it, while sucking the water out from the bottom of the tank. Tests afterwards show 0.5ppm and it increases 0.5 at most each day. I fully expect this to subside completely in the coming week, and move into the Nitrite portion of this cycle.

Weird note, even though this is slowing on the Ammonia, I've not seen any Nitrite on any tests, outside of one 0.25ppm about 2 weeks ago (won't reg. this now). (Seeded the media to begin with 9 weeks ago, might of starved it all off) This cycle hasn't been going exactly as expected, but seems to have progressed.

Anyway, the supplements I've used on this tank include: Tetra Start Zyme, API Instant Start, Stability, and Mulm--from est. tanks.

**bignellm** · 04-08-2012, 03:40 PM

Today's chemistry results:
Ammonia--0.50ppm
Nitrite--0ppm
Nitrate--0ppm

So, Ammonia is holding steady, for 2 days now. Got me scratching my head now. I should be seeing Nitrite by now. Especially if Ammonia isn't moving up.

**Cermet** · 04-08-2012, 04:03 PM

The lack of nitrites (these will be seen first and often disappears fast) may or may not be an issue (since they can appear/disappear quickly) but then nitrates must show up. Still, lack of the nitrxtes family means the bacteria just isn't growing large enough in the filter media to process the ammonia enough for readings. For most people, cycling takes six weeks but nitrites show within three weeks (some cases.) If possible, raise the temp to 82 F (but the fish will need more air and of course, acidic water to help passivate the ammonia.) By the way, if the ammonia growth rate is slower, the bacteria may be growing enough to start controling it - yet, not enough nitrites to read (yet.) Things seem to be going well but time is what is needed and you can't rush the growth except temp. Good luck.

**bignellm** · 04-08-2012, 04:18 PM

Temp is currently 85, on account of being stung by my most trusted lfs. Got a pair of really sick Ich infested BN Pleco. So far that treatment seems perfecto. No signs of anyone else with that parasite.

I'm just thinking this tank wants to defy all that I know. Ammonia's leveling/leveled off, so maybe it's all come to the end, without much fanfare. Which would be good, as my Rams would love to move in soon.

**Cermet** · 04-08-2012, 08:19 PM

When the nitrates appear and ammonia is zero then you will be done BUT only for that 'bioload' of fish. When you add more fish - the filter will spike: an ammonia signal will be seen depending on the number of fish. The filter will have to have time to grow to remove the increased fish waste. Then after its grows (I think this occurs much more quickly than the first cycle because you already have bacteria to convert nitrites.

**bignellm** · 04-09-2012, 01:17 AM

For progress, it's a good day; for fish toxicity, it sucks. But here we are, Cycle stage 2. Nitrite is solidly here, with 0.25ppm on the reading scale. That means we're one step closer to the final goal--aging the tank and adding the Blue Ram pair.

Going to throw in another Tetra Start Zyme, before heading off to work.

**bignellm** · 04-09-2012, 11:49 PM

Well, today is well; how is this even possible?
Ammonia 1ppm
Nitrite 0.25ppm
Nitrate 5ppm

The first two held steady, and now we have the final. Which means this tank is cycled. Just to test my test, I took a sample to the lfs to be double tested. Yep; 5ppm Nitrate. And a couple weeks ago it was a solid 0. Been fighting weeks and weeks with Ammonia and two days ago Nitrite shows up, now we have 5ppm Nitrate.

And to boot, the Sterbai have given the tank, a 5 egg seal of approval on the glass. The first visible batch. Going to let the tank be tonight and give it a 30-50% w/c and test again in a day or two. Seems by this weekend, we could have a tank ready to house Marcus and Maria, my two Blue Rams.

**Cermet** · 04-10-2012, 01:07 PM

A tank is not cycled until both the ammonia and nitrite are zero. Nitrite holding steady just means that the bacteria has a lot more growth needed and your ammonia level is still rather high! That means the bacteria is trying to catch up but hasn't. A 70%+ water change is in order (that will get the ammonia down to 0.3 ppm which is more than high enough for cycling.) Things are moving along and hopefully, no spikes will occur.
Do NOT add more fish until the tank cycles (zero on ammonia and nitrite) and then add fish slowly if you want to avoid a killer spike (note: I just do massive 80% water changes for a few days to a week to keep the spike down - which I am currently doing after introducing a large group of new fish into my mature multi-filtered tank.)
You should read the section on fish cycling because you are not clear on what is going on. You may be cycled by the weekend but becareful - the tank isn't cycled yet. Good luck!